Stephen Frears – Chris Barsanti

Meryl Streep’s latest role requires her to do some stretching, as it involves playing a woman who was absolutely terrible at doing the thing she loved most.

Florence Foster Jenkins is playing now. My review is at Eyes Wide Open:

There’s an old joke about the difference that money makes for people suffering from mental illness. Most mentally ill people are just referred to as “crazy.” The ones with money, though, are tagged as “eccentric.” Very few statements have more clearly defined the advantages that wealth bestows upon those who have it. Until, that is, the release earlier this month of Florence Foster Jenkins. It’s a dialed-in, feel-good period piece in which almost all the main characters bend over backwards to protect the fragile delusions of one extremely eccentric woman…

Here’s the trailer:

In the new bicycling melodrama (a category that yes, does sound oxymoronic) The Program, director Stephen Frears tells the story of the rise and fall (and fall) of Lance Armstrong, played by Ben Foster.

The Program is opening this week. My review is at Film Journal International:

There is almost no other modern athletic hero beside Lance Armstrong who was more lionized in his success and more scorned in his downfall. His rise to fame was the kind of story that sports journalists live for: A previously good but unremarkable biker doesn’t just beat a cancer diagnosis, he follows it up by winning one Tour de France after another in unprecedented fashion. His ignominious fall from grace was a story that any journalist would want…

Here’s the trailer:

Chris Barsanti

Tag: Stephen Frears

Screening Room: ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’

Screening Room: ‘The Program’